The end of year Son Doong Porter party and other pre-Tet parties

Hmmm, can we eat all this food ourselves?

It's official, party season has begun!

Ho Khanh does the speeches

A few days before the New Year (Tet) and the parties have begun, at the moment it is the end of year parties.

Cheers

First up was the Son Doong Porter Party, a riotous affair held at Mr Nguyen's house. All the usual ingredients of a successful Vietnamese party, food, drink, speeches, loud music and dancing.

Men dancing!

Two days later was the Oxalis end of year do, held at the Vung Hue Restaurant and included food, drink, speeches, loud music and (probably) dancing, but we left before this.

Wedding feast

After that I had a day of weddings (Ruth was in Son Doong), first was Lam, a guide with Oxalis, (We actually had an invite to this one!) and from there I was taken directly to a second wedding, this was of one of the cooks at Oxalis.

Jo arguing with the bride and groom

No Speeches at either but food, drink, loud music and dancing, lots of drink with various relatives of the happy couples.

Wedding feast, tastefully presented

The weather continues to be cold and damp, so Ruth had a few cold nights on her Hang Son Doong tour.

More food, can I fit any more in?

Finally, we had the opening night (even though it is not actually open yet!) of Bó'm's (I think that's close to how you spell his name, pronounced Burm) new restaurant and Homestay, he is one of the cooks on the Hang Son Doong tour. It is going to be a fantastic place, he's a good cook, the build quality is excellent and so are the views.

Here comes the rain again

It was Howard's birthday so a cake was provided, also Colin is leaving Phong Nha to go back to the UK so another cake was provided. It really is a hard life out here and very difficult not to loose weight so you have to eat plenty.

Testing out the restaurant food. It passed

We Westerners, and some of the more respected guests got to sit at the restaurant tables while most of the porters sat on the floor, which is normal for them and suits them fine.

Poters get to sit on the floor

Watto got into a bit of a drinking match with some of the porters, the porters won and he had to be helped home. So now we have one day off before the Tet celebrations begin.

Give me me that cake